You showed me how easily
the cheesy wotsits crumbled through your fingers
sticky orange dust filling your hands
my heart pouring its molten mass onto your palms.
You hold out your hand
and laugh softly, beckoning, seducing,
wordlessly, I bend to lick off the crumbs,
nibble those long fingers,
caress my liquid heart aquiver in the scoop of your hands.
My tongue feels pure joy
electric flashes.
***
And then the morning-starved yell of one fat baby
pierced the thickening dawn
and that was it
dream gone
querulous mouths back demanding
running up and down those stairs
retrieving wellies and jumpers to pull on protesting limbs.
Yet that dream glow stayed with me all day
as I gave my serviceable Mum-shoes a miss
and slipped on lethal heels.
That day I felt attractive again.
We first kissed under the laden waft of Chernobyl
all that summer we were ablaze
counting the hours since our last kiss
you only knew my body in its sinewy smoothness
not the quaver softness of child-stretched flesh
you only remember hopes and ideals
not the compromises and shortfalls
I like the picture of myself in your mind’s eye
still dewy potential, spirit and energy.
But then the pale sceptre arises with rueful smile
admitting, ‘I’m tired now. I’m off to bed.’
findingtimetowrite 
Wowser, it’s not often you find mention of cheesy wotsits and Chernobyl in one poem. Well done, very intriguing!
That’s teenagers for you – trivial and traumatic are equally important (and dramatised)!
I call my girls “the two fleshy wedges between us.” Beautiful poem.
I just wish the fleshy bits weren’t on me… Thanks for your comment!
Love this, Marina, and can relate … I hope at least that you held that dream long enough that you could continue that dream in your sleep. 🙂
Sadly, I never recaptured that dream, but it did lead to me starting to write poetry again after a XXX years’ hiatus! So all’s well that ends well…
“We first kissed under the laden waft of Chernobyl
all that summer we were ablaze
counting the hours since our last kiss
you only knew my body in its sinewy smoothness…”
I love these lines, Marina; so profound!
smiles… the life of a mother – beautifully exhausting – ha – wellies and all – strangely enough i felt really attractive when in was pregnant – the weeks after the baby was born not so much…oy
Ah, yes, those months and even years went by in a haze of sleep-deprivation and lots of unidentifed messes on floors and clothes… we all need a little dreaming in our lives, right?
Pretty cool that the dream brought you back to poetry. It is hard as children and years start to wear on you to feel pretty or sexy. Sometimes we have to be reminded. Very well constructed Marina
It was indeed – and, funnily enough, the person with whom I shared that first kiss under the cloud of Chernobyl also became a writer and poet subsequently (though not as a result of my dream).
This is most excellent.. the flashback of those days before the licking of the fingers, the before and then back again to the tiredness of motherhood.. I’m glad you had an old poem that fitted the prompt.
This was the first poem I wrote after a gap of about 15 years or so and it was indeed provoked by a dream. Thanks for letting me use it, old as it is.
Sometimes it is hard to get back to reality after this kind of dream, however hard we may try. I did well in capturing the feeling of adolescence and its romantic idiosyncrasies. As for the aging of our bodies, I like to think we age better than our foremothers.
Ah, but my foremothers were shepherdesses and farmers, with strong bodies and piercing minds well into old age, so I fear I may be a bit of a disappointment to them with my ‘weak city ways’.
Ah, sometimes it is good to look back at those times…when we can enjoy thinking about ourselves as being seen in another’s eye, when those hopes and ideals were alive, and life was stretched out ahead of us on the horizon!
Now that my 3 children are grown up, I can look back at to those early days with a smile ~ But still its nice to recall our younger and more spirited selves, all dewy eyed with ideals ~ But mid life is not so mad as I think you have the best of both worlds yet, though it can be tiring ~
That is one heck of a dream glow.
I am so glad you used this poem for this prompt, that it was the poem that brought you back to poetry. Cheesies, Chernobyl, wellies…..from one part of your life to another and then, back to the future and your wonderful poetry. I so enjoyed this trip down the wormhole with you!
I bend to lick off the crumbs,
nibble those long fingers,
caress my liquid heart aquiver in the scoop of your hands.
My tongue feels pure joy
electric flashes.
Such a beautiful & sensuous piece 🙂 Well penned 😀
Thank you, that was the feeling I was trying to capture indeed!
Ah.. young love lives young when free and young.. with youth
welling in spirit free of new alive.. in sensuous delight
of living flesh.. oh to renew.. to live again..
in now.. in ecstatic delight.. of flight..
i find that within..
with willing
mate
or not..
smiles..
life is long..
but life is good..
even without THAT..
to breathe is enough for me..:)
Every mother was a lover first…in lethal heels 🙂 You kicked this one!
Ha, I like that line – could be a motto!
i like the dream that enlivens a soul….”I like the picture of myself in your mind’s eye / still dewy potential, spirit and energy.”…my favorite lines and i think it’s a kind of dream too….
I love the flow of this….its powerful yet sensuous and exciting to the ear…you could take any subject and run away with it in poetry I am sure..great memory for the prompt
This is Marvelous!
Oh the realities of everyday. Bravo!
Marina,this is my favourite of all the time travel poems I have read so far. It spoke to the mother in me, and I said “Yes”.
Awww, thank you, Viv – very much appreciated. My children are a little older now, so things have moved on.
Memories keep us going when the day-to-day threatens to bring us to a stop. Lovely reminiscence.
Exactly what I had in mind… Thank you for visiting and commenting.
Oh yes…there’s something completely different about young love’s infatuation and the reality of parenthood.
Indeed! Wish we could have both simultaneously, but alas…